1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for drying leaf products. More specifically, the invention concerns an apparatus permitting continuously drying leaf products, such as salad and similar delicate products.
2. Brief Description of the Art
As it is well known, drying steps are provided when processing food products such as leaf products and generally speaking vegetables. To this end, various apparatuses are presently available.
In case it is necessary drying huge amount of product, drying is carried out using heat exchange tunnel systems. This solution has well evident drawbacks, among which the high managing and maintenance costs and the fact that said systems can ruin products, particularly leaf products that are particularly delicate.
Apparatuses are already available on the market in order to overcome these problems.
Main technical problem of this kind of apparatuses is that they have a batch operation mode. In other words, product to be dried, once loaded in the apparatus, is dried by centrifugation and then removed, and then the same cycle is repeated.
In order to overcome this problem, the Applicant has already filed the Italian Patent Application no RM2002A000032. Said application describes an apparatus mainly comprising an elevator belt for continuously loading the product, a continuous discharge elevator belt, and a centrifugal system.
Main problem of this kind of solution is due to the fact that it creates rather bulky product heaps on the discharge elevator belt, thus creating problems to the following operation along the line.
It is thus evident that these solutions are expensive and require a long time to complete the process.
In view of the above, it is object of the present invention that of suggesting an apparatus for drying delicate leaf products permitting a continuous drying step, with a consequent increase of processing rate of the processing lines providing said apparatus.